The first solo show in Italy of Francesco Simeti (Palermo 1968 – lives and works in Brooklyn) opens the new exhibition season of the gallery. During the past year, Francesco took part in several shows in Italy – “Officina America” curated by Renato Barilli, at Villa delle Rose in Bologna, “Assab One” and “Understatement” in Milan – and abroad – the Biennal Exhibition of Herning in Denmark, the Museum of Design in Lausanne, the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York.

Francesco Simeti’s recent work investigates the ambiguity which characterizes the relationship between form and content in many war images found in the press. His research highlights on one hand the aesthetic emphasis in contemporary photoreportage which ends by negating the content of the image itself and on the other hand the risk that an excess of visual information may produce indifference. Starting with a repertory of war images, the artist creates a series of installations which establish a dialogue between the images themselves and the specific physical or contextual site.

For the gallery, Simeti has elaborated a project involving the entire space. In the largest room, the main work is made up of an installation of 26 letters, reminiscent of a classroom alphabet, in which the 26 combinations of word and image comprise a dictionary of the contemporary world. The perimeter of the space is circumscribed by a frieze, images of refugees in repetition that animate a continuous yet perpetually changing landscape. A third work on the glass of the main entrance door, playing with the element of transparency, meditates upon the “invisibility” of given images and decorative elements.
In the other room, a ‘wallpaper’ installation maintains a delicate balance between the pleasing aesthetic of the design and the conceptual impact of scenes portraying men in gas masks protective suits.